Charcoal grilling food products is a method of cooking which has gained in popularity in recent years. The popularity of charcoal grilling can be attributed to, in large part, the increase in outdoor activities such as camping and hiking. It is common in these activities to utilize a small, portable barbecue grills such as a "Hibachi" to cook various meats and other food items using charcoal as fuel.
In general, the small barbecue grills are made of cheap, lightweight metals and consist of a charcoal receptacle and a grill upon which the food items are placed during cooking.
Frequently, in order to enhance the flavor of the food being cooked on the grill, wood chips, such as hickory chips are placed on top of the burning coals and the smoke given off by these smoldering wood chips imparts flavor to the foods being cooked.
Since these conventional grill assemblies are typically made of metal, they are often cumbersome and heavy making them inconvenient for portable use in outdoor hiking and camping. Furthermore, after a conventional grill assembly has been utilized, the user must then transport the assembly from the outdoor site so that the grill may be properly disposed of. That is, these conventional grill assemblies cannot be easily disposed of following their use.
It would, therefore, be advantageous to provide a cooking apparatus which is biodegradable and, therefore, which can be easily disposed of. Additionally, it would be advantageous to provide a cooking apparatus which intrinsically imparts flavor to the food items being cooked adding additional wood chips to the charcoal.
The present invention provides an assembly for heating a food product, the assembly being easily biodegraded and, therefore, easily disposed of. Additionally, the present invention provides an intrinsic mechanism for imparting smoked flavor into a food item being cooked. Finally, the present invention provides an apparatus for forming the novel cooking assembly of the present invention.